Andrew Bailey

Some day somebody’s gonna make you want to turn around and say goodbye. Until then baby, are you going to let them hold you down and make you cry? Don’t you know? Don’t you know things can change, things’ll go your way, if you hold on for one more day.

That music of genius was brought on by a smooth impromptu karaoke session in a West Boston saloon. It was me and Ralph and a girl who was paid by the dollar to talk to us about her kid. It’s all a true story. Fun times were had, and at the time I didn’t realize how correlative the song was back then to this particular stat category and one that is by far my favorite to talk about. Funny, it only took a Wilson Phillips song on the drive home from work to reminisce about Boston, Ralph, and relief pitching. I love the stat, not everyone uses it, but I still love it nonetheless. If your leagues uses it, cool, well I will be your every other week destination for giving you the low-down on the hold situations going across the MLB. So get comfy, with a week to go until Spring Training starts, and the full extent of the 2017 season yet to play. You will get sick of me, in say… 30 weeks. So get comfy on your favorite porcelain fantasy reading chair and welcome to a brand new year!

Oakland rookie third baseman Ryon Healy continued to rake Friday night as he collected two hits and scored a run to extend his hitting streak to seven, with six multi-hit games in that span. Sometimes I get fantasy advice from good friend of mine and rapper 50 Cent, who is a much better fantasy baseballer than he is a real baseballer. In between freestyle seshs, Fitty says to me, “Yo D (he calls me D), you gotta get on Ryon Healy, if you been Patiently Waiting for a decent corner, dude is a P.I.M.P., get rich and buy Ryon, do-you-know-what-I-am-saying?” OK, thanks, Fitty. Not a bad headline either…also, funny, how you plugged a bunch of your songs there, but I guess these be tough times. He’s right though. Healy has been a certified G-Unit soldier in the month of September, batting .400, with 9 runs, 4 homers, 5 doubles and 12 RBI. If that ain’t a wanksta, I don’t know what is. Honestly, I really don’t. Is it bad or good? Regardless, in the past week the rookie has been very, very good. He’s hitting .517 with 8 runs, 3 homers and 9 RBI. That’s in seven days, people! How many more fantasy days left? Can’t be much more than seven, so sounds like Ryon Healy could be a nice player to own down the stretch. He was a BUY this week and I picked him up! 50 grabbed him too and he’s available in about 80% of leagues. Hate it or love it, pick him up if you want to win!

When it’s fourth and long and 20 years ago, I believe the old song from the sea goes… You don’t look at the stats to date, especially when it’s with two weeks to play. What is ahead of you is all that matters. There is no loyalty, this isn’t the time to dance with the date you brought to the dance. You are looking for stats in any shape or form, period. So I give you the list, yes, the list is the bible of what guys are and what they have done for the year, but if you have an inkling that player A is going to save three games compared to player B getting one, then that answers your own question and you have deemed me useless. It kinda hurts that you deem me useless, but I will move on. I have been through a few relationships where it was a “it’s you not me” type scenario. Regardless, I have taken pride in bringing you the best that I can give in terms of fantasy bullpen type goodies on a weekly basis. After all, it is the readers of fantasy that make fantasy go round. So I would like to say thank you, no there is at best two more post to end the year but I wanted to say thank you now since we still have some attention span left instead of steering it towards fantasy football, which is awesome and you should go check out what Jay and the boys (and girls) are dishing out top notch type stuff. Before you click over to that, stay here for some fantasy bullpen chicanery and knowledge courtesy of your’s truly.

Kevin Kiermaier might be my first sleeper of the 2017 fantasy baseball season. The funny thing (completely and irrefutably not funny) is with fantasy football starting, fantasy basketball getting underway (don’t worry, I won’t clickbait you to death) and fantasy teams just falling out of contention, players that do well in September are often forgotten by next March even though they’re performing in the month closest to the next preseason. (Guys and five girl readers, if anyone says I don’t know the calendar, you tell them that is just inaccurate. Grey knows the calendar very well. Happy July 4th!) Kiermaier has that potent mix that I crave so much. No, not Russian dressing and relish, though that is delicious. Your secret is safe with me, sauce! Instead, I’m talking about a power and speed combo. For 2017, it seems entirely possible that he gets to 25+ HRs and 30+ steals. He’s only played in 91 games this year for 12 HRs, 18 SBs, and has a repeatable HR/FB%. In fact (Grey’s got more!), with his walk rate trending up and speed, his average might be more like .275 in 2017 vs. .250 this year. It’s not all yums ‘n roses with his Slash line. He could be more Dexter Fowler (14-ish HRs, 17-20 SBs) than Correa. That’s fine, because he’ll be drafted way closer, if not after Fowler. As for why to grab him now? He’s got five homers and six steals in the last ten days. DUR! Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:

“What about Asdrubal? Asdrubal, Cron, Buxton, Peraza, Morales and Puig? Puig, Morales, Asdrubal, Buxton and Morales? Have I already mentioned Morales? What about Puig? What about Cron? WHAT ABOUT CRON?! Hardwiring is smoking! I think I’m overheating! Don’t throw water on me, I’ll short circuit!” It’s too late. As the water hits the Fantasy Master Lothario’s mainframe, a sickening mix of smoke and sizzle expels from his metal joints. He staggers to a pole and places his metal hand down. With one last flicker, he looks up with his metallic, blue eyes and asks hopefully, “Is Puig facing a lefty?” And shuts down. The metal pole he placed his hand on wasn’t just any pole, it hung Old Glory. As if the ghost of George Washington himself was a fan, the American flag lowers onto the Lothario’s shoulders, draping him like a metal Kid Rock. If only people would’ve just picked up C.J. Cron! My one major quibble with Cron — Or is it queef? I always confuse those two. — is Cron going to have The Sciosciapath try to outsmart the universe and start benching one of the hottest hitters? Not even the Sciosciapath can answer that, for he does not know what his brain tells him to do. Plus, he’s crazy. Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:

Psyche! Before we get into the Buy/Sell, just wanted to say a huge fantasy football announcement is coming in the next few days. Let’s just say it sounds like Stream-o-Nator, but it’s got a football vibe to it. And it’s less lonely. Oh, Stream-o-Nator so lonely! I wonder if the Stream-o-Nator and Hitter-Tron ever tried to date. Anyway II, the Buy/Sell:

Holy shizzballs. That’s not the Urban Dictionary definition of shizzballs either, which is when you shizz your grapes. That’s shizzballs as in this is the greatest display of sexiness since a young Kim Cattrall was featured in a window display. Brian Dozier is doing more for the long ball than any old man with shizzballs could ever imagine. That’s back to the original definition of shizzballs. Right now, Dozier is the exact perfect moment when your 12-year-old self pressed the buttons perfectly together on the old cable box and unscrambled Playboy TV at its best, with a perfectly scrolled, snowy version of Naughty Candid Camera. Trying to cover, when being caught, “It’s Allen Funt, mom. Uh…Maybe that’s not an F on the front of his last name.” Yesterday, Brian Dozier hit three more homers — 3-for-5, 4 RBIs, hitting .279 — and now has 38 homers on the year, and is easily leading the entire majors for homers in the 2nd half with 24 homers. For 2017, he’s going to be tough to peg, due to his inflated HR/FB% and falling line drive rate, but he doesn’t look much worse than a 25 HR/15 SB guy, which still has value. For this year, obviously you ride the lightning. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

The Royals are fun, no gimmick team to watch. They aren’t really mashers, and they aren’t really a base-to-base team. They are a cross of both, and masters of none kinda thing. With the recent injury to Cain, who has been nursing a wrist injury, Jarrod Dyson has found himself a regular seat at the big boy table. He always had the ability to steal bases, and by what we are witnessing as of late, it is that if given the opportunity for regular at-bats those SB numbers could blossom into something actually useful. Over the last 30 days, he has more at-bats than any other 30-day span this year and the SB tally is a complete reflection of it. He had 13 steals in the first half in 172 plate appearances, and in the second half, with more starts, he has 12 in 95, The falloff in production, who could expect a lot from Paulo Orlando and the injury to Cain, seem to have cemented him in the top of the lineup for at least the next few games. If nothing else, he is a pinch-run threat and with 25 total steals to date, could be an asset for a spot play down the stretch as we should be maximizing every angle or roster spot possible. Available in 94% of RCL leagues and currently not just rewarding with steals, as he has 4 runs and 3 RBI’s over his last seven. Not a true one-trick pony, sorta like the Royals. Let’s see what else is on the get down with the Saves/Steals Ain’t Got No Face department…

Before we point fingers and exclaim how “right or wrong” we are, know that I am writing this intro BEFORE Aaron Nola‘s start yesterday afternoon. I don’t want my intro to sully my thoughts from the top down. The post needs to read like a before-and-after! Kinda like how Grey slammed my Joe Ross rank endlessly on the Pod “before” the season, and even with awesome results “after” 5 starts, he’s still going to find ways to troll me on him… Sigh… Also, I need to use a thesaurus on the word “before”…

So why was I so slow to sip any of the Nola Kool-Aid? Well, here’s the red flags I saw PRIOR TO yesterday’s start: .227 BABIP, he averages 90.0 on his fastball, was never a K guy through the Minors, K rate has jumped from 7.88 in 77.2 IP last year to 9.90 in 40.0 IP this year, and finally, he’s looking like a 2-pitch guy right now with 59.5% fastballs and 33.7% curveballs. Now, I admittedly use Fangraphs as my reference, and maybe he mixes a few fastball variants and he’s leaning off his change-up since his curve is working so well right now. Unless you’re in the MLB Man Cave, you’re not watching every single SP every start (plus you’re like, a few weeks behind the current action, so that’s lame), so I concede I hadn’t watched Nola yet this year. But after the Nola-grillingon myranks in the comments last week, seeing Nola was getting the start on Sunday made him the prime Pitcher to be Profiled. Here’s how he looked yesterday afternoon in the Crayola Canyon:

There’s embarrassment and then there’s having to cover in detail a fantasy baseball league you’re nearly dead last in. So begins our first monthly update on the in house dynasty league “The RazzNasty”. For those of you that are new here, “The RazzNasty” is a Razzball founded dynasty league made up of Razzball writers, readers, commenters, and Methodists! It’s a 16 team roto with semi-weekly adds/drops via blind auction. We have 30 man MLB rosters and 10 man minor league rosters. Since we last updated you in early March there’s been a flurry of activity including trades, wire adds, a second commissioner switch, and a banana or two in the tailpipe. So yes it’s more or less high stakes Mario Kart.

Bryan Price, always one for colorful language, should go full Tony Montana about his relievers, “Look at that, I got a junkie bullpen, mang. My bullpen is so polluted! I can’t even have a save with that bullpen. It’s so polluted!” After his Montana rant, Price could clarify who will save games in his bullpen through a string of curse words and em-effers. Yesterday, Price said they’d go to a committee. Great, maybe they can make a camel. Hoover’s out, Jumbo’s gone because his physique reminded them too much of their ERA. Caleb Cotham could see some saves, and he’s been good vs. minor leaguers, but he’s been honing his craft in the minor leagues for a while. This isn’t like a potter who needs time to hone his ashtray-making skills before hitting the big-time flea markets. Being in the minors long just means you might never achieve success in the majors. Going for Cotham is that he throws righty and he hasn’t failed yet. Then there’s Tony Cingrani, who I grabbed on Tuesday. He has been decent enough in the bullpen this year, but he’s a lefty and he blew the save yesterday in the 8th inning. Oh, and there’s Blake Wood, who is reminiscent of Jeanmar Gomez, and we know how well that turned out. *intern whispers in my ear* Seems that so far Jeanmar has worked out okay. For now, I’d own Cingrani then Cotham, but this is nigh-thurr pretty nor set in stone. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball: